Tim Lebbon - Kong - Skull Island

He needed saving. Helpless, horrified, Packard heard Jack Chapman’s final agonised screams, and then the sickening crunching sound that marked his end.

He turned away from the group and stared into the jungle as he finally let the signal fade out.

“Sir?” Reles called over. “Anything?”

“Still out of range,” Packard said. He packed away the radio and stood, decision made. This would destroy them. And besides, there was still work to be done.

Chapman’s death didn’t mean that their destination should change.

“Come on, ladies,” Packard said. “We got miles to go before we sleep.” He watched his men hustle the group together again, efficient, determined, the soldiers he had always wanted them to be.

He was furious. He was grief-stricken. And he knew that their greatest battle was still to come.

Weaver felt some sadness at leaving the Iwi village behind. Everything on this journey so far had been new, but many of the new images framed in her lens had been terrible or traumatic. The Iwi were not. They were mysterious and enigmatic, and she would have happily spent several weeks staying with them, documenting their lives and existence and building a photographic portrait of this unknown, untouched tribe.

Marlow had lived with them for over three decades, and even he admitted to not understanding much of their history. He admitted that he had always been just a visitor with them, never really belonging.

As the boat worked its way north with Marlow at the helm, she took advantage of the calm moment and checked her equipment. Her used films were sealed in film cartridges, then double-sealed in plastic bags to make sure they didn’t get wet. She kept them in a shoulder bag slung tight across her chest. The cameras and lenses were still clean and serviceable, apart from the one lens she’d cracked. She still kept that one tucked away in her bag, just in case it became a last resort.

With a limited supply of film, she had to choose her moment to take pictures. Yet every moment and place on this terrifying, amazing journey seemed picture-worthy. She wandered the boat’s deck, framing new moments with each step.

Slivko finally finished levelling his record player, using slivers of wood to prop corners. He lowered the needle on a record, and the first strains of ‘Fly Me To The Moon’ drifted across the deck.

“Least there’s music,” Slivko said, glancing up just in time for Weaver to snap his image. He blinked, then looked away. She was used to the guilt of intruding on a moment. Most of the time, she considered it part of her job.

“Slivko,” Conrad said. “Remember those things with teeth?”

Slivko looked across the water at the jungle pressed close to the shore and turned down the volume.

“How can you listen to music at a time like this?” Nieves asked. Weaver wondered if everyone found him as annoying as she did. “And why are you carrying that stupid record player, anyway?”

“Calms the nerves, man,” Slivko said. “Tunes got me through the Tet Offensive.”

Weaver turned away and aimed her camera elsewhere. San approached Brooks and handed him an MCI ration.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Thank you. For before. For protecting me when I… you know.” She started to open another ration tin.

“Trying, anyway. Lemme get that for you,” he said, taking the container. He flipped open a knife and promptly cut his finger as he attempted to open it.

“Allow me,” San said, smiling.

“You should see me in the library,” Brooks replied, which made San laugh.

Weaver snapped her laughter, and Brooks with his finger to his mouth. It was a moment frozen in time, speaking volumes. The art of what she did was ever-present, but the philosophical impact never ceased to amaze her. People went through life believing that they were constantly on the move, yet she knew that every life was an infinite series of frozen moments. Passing them by with life’s riot as a distraction, few people recognised the limitless potential and fascination of these instants.

“Hey, you guys,” Marlow said, raising his voice above the music. “So when the man on the moon got up there, did he find the man in the moon?”

“Nah,” Nieves said. “Just shadows of lunar dust seas, higher mountain ranges, that sort of thing. The human brain has a propensity to extrapolate images that don’t exist from random images. It’s called pareidolia.”

“Yeah, well, whatever,” Marlow said. “My mother used to tell me the moon was a foolish boy chasing the sun across the sky, forgetting to eat ’til he waned away to nothing.”

“That comes from an Inuit myth,” San said.

“Myths are the stories we tell to explain things we don’t understand,” Nieves said.

“Kinda sad when we lose those things to rocket ships and cameras in space,” Weaver said, stepping up beside Conrad. She liked him being close. It felt safe.

“Until the myth decides to eat you,” Conrad said.

They fell quiet after that, perhaps all remembering the worst parts of their day.

Weaver framed the river ahead of them, jungle on both sides, darkness its destination, and took a picture of their future.

Ever since passing under the wall Conrad had felt nervous. Or rather, even more nervous than before. The others seemed to be enjoying the relative calm aboard Marlow’s boat, and the stranded pilot’s eccentricities. For a man isolated so long from the world he called home, he seemed largely undamaged. Indeed, rather than just survive he seemed to have flourished. Conrad sensed a deeper sadness in him, but guessed it was more to do with the death of his friend, the man who was once his enemy, than anything else. He’d left a wife and son behind, but this felt so much like another world that their absence was probably remote, like the memory of a fading dream. The Japanese pilot’s death must have felt like losing a family for the second time.

Conrad paced the deck keeping watch. Slivko’s music played, the scratched records providing a strange soundtrack to their journey. Weaver was at the bow, camera aimed ahead. Occasionally she turned it around to focus on the passengers. She seemed as nervous as him.

“We have no idea what’s out there,” she said.

“We’ve got some idea. Big bad things.”

“Let’s just hope we can pass them by.”

“Yeah,” Conrad said. “The island can’t be that big, though.”

“Comforting,” she said.

Conrad shrugged. It wasn’t his job to offer false optimism.

The needle jumped on Slivko’s record player. The soldier cursed.

“What do you think will happen when—” Weaver began, and the needle jumped again.

“Choppy waters,” Conrad said. He stood and looked over the bow at the river they were slicing through. The water was heavy with mud from recent rains, but there was very little chop. It was wide and slow here, subject only occasionally to swirls of current.

He looked back at Marlow.

Steering the boat, the pilot was suddenly tense, staring down at the river ahead.

“Hey, try to keep this hulk steady!” Slivko said. “This is Zeppelin, man. You don’t want to scratch the Zep.”

“The water’s not choppy,” Marlow said, and Conrad knew that they were in trouble. It was the knowledge in Marlow’s eyes that convinced him. They’d hit something.

“Everyone stay alert,” Conrad said. “Keep your weapons close.”

“Huh?” Nieves said.

The boat jumped, and the record player’s needle scratched right across the album. Slivko stood and grabbed his M-16 just as the shape flung itself up and over the starboard railing and curled around his leg. It pulled, he went down, and the boat’s forward motion meant that he was instantly dragged towards the stern.